Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is seeking a commercial partner to help it further develop, productize and get certified a screening system for bottled liquids that offers greater capabilities for detecting explosives than Bottled Liquid Screeners (BLS) currently being purchased by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a LANL official tells TR2.
LANL officials earlier this month demonstrated their MagViz BLS prototypes at a passenger checkpoint at the Albuquerque (N.M.) International Sunport Airport, with the system being used to analyze liquids in containers that were over the three ounce limit and had to be divested by passengers prior to being screened. MagViz uses ultra-low field nuclear magnetic resonance technology for detecting liquid explosives.
TSA is currently purchasing tabletop BLS systems from CEIA and Smiths Detection. These devices “provide the lowest level of screening” as envisioned by TSA, Michelle Espy, the principal investigator for LANL’s MagViz project, tells TR2. By “Low I mean lowest level with regard to what threats they look at and what packaging they can accommodate.”
Espy believes that MagViz offers a better system for looking through metal cans, foil-lined packaging and other hard to see through containers to determine if the liquid contents represent a potential explosives threat.
“I think looking toward the future DHS (Department of Homeland Security) still wants to invest in up and coming technology that might be a little more flexible down the road,” she says. “Water bottles and clear bottles are one thing but we want to see through absolutely any package.”
MagViz was first introduced nearly two years ago and demonstrated in an unused wing of the Sunport (TR2, Jan. 7, 2009). At the time, the system was larger than an X-Ray system used to screen carry-on bags at a checkpoint but now is small enough to fit on a tabletop, making it practical for security applications at checkpoints.
The original development detector and magnet prototype was based on a superconducting quantum interference device (SQID), which requires cryogenic cooling. Espy says the SQID may be the most sensitive magnetic field detector but it requires helium to be cooled, which is expensive and cumbersome. That system was being developed to identify specific chemical signatures and actually did progress to the point of demonstrating sensitivity to one chemical, hydrogen peroxide, she said.
As TSA’s requirements began to emerge, Espy says LANL knew that the agency was looking for BLS technology for secondary screening of a single bottle at a time and that would take up little room, work quickly, be relatively inexpensive, and provide a go, no-go alert. The tabletop version of MagViz that LANL has developed is estimated to cost under $20,000 that uses a room temperature sensor, not the SQID, and can provide a red light or green light answer for a user in less than 15 seconds in the laboratory, Espy says. In the Sunport demonstration the throughput was a “little slower” than in the lab, which Espy basically attributes to operating MagViz in a public venue and making sure the researchers weren’t getting false information as a result.
In the recent demonstration MagViz demonstrated sensitivity to five chemicals, Espy says.
In the end, she says, the demonstration was successful.
Going forward, Espy says LANL will be working toward getting MagViz to be sensitive to TSA’s complete list of threat chemicals, which include mixtures that homemade explosives might consist of. In addition to continuing to improve the specificity of the machine, Espy says the auxiliary electronics need to be made smaller and be compatible with the power infrastructure found at airports. The sampling mechanism also needs to be made more robust to handle bottles of any shape or size, she adds.
One of the biggest steps over the next couple of years will be to get MagViz into the DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s Transportation Security Laboratory for testing, Espy says. This will allow the system to “go through the paces” that all new technologies have to and provide “critical feedback” for the development effort, she says. Initially, MagViz could be tested at the TSL without the goal of having it certified but just to make sure the project is heading in the right direction, she adds.
The hope going forward is to have an industrial partner that works closely with LANL but Espy says “we’ll do it however we can.” The project continues to receive funding from DHS S&T, which would like to an industrial partner brought in to work closely with LANL, she says.